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Climate Change and Oregon's Estuaries

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Climate Change and Oregon's Estuaries the OREGON CONSERVATION STRATEGY FACT SHEET Climate Change and Oregon’s Estuaries Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife stuaries are complex and highly productive ecosystems that occur where freshwater rivers meet the Eocean. Oregon’s estuaries provide many benefits. They: • Provide wintering habitat for waterfowl, stopover feeding areas for migrating shorebirds, and year-round habitat for many other fish, wildlife, and aquatic plant species; • Serve as breeding and nursery grounds for many rockfish species and as refuge and feeding grounds for a wide variety of crustaceans, mollusks, and fish, including juvenile salmon on their way to the ocean and perhaps three-quarters of Oregon’s harvested fish species;1 • Buffer wave damage during storms and help stabilize shorelines; and • Improve water quality by filtering out sediment and nutrients, and by removing pathogens and other contaminants.2 Estuary systems already face a number of threats. Development, diking, and drainage in coastal areas have resulted in the loss of over 20 percent of Oregon’s estuary habitat, with much higher losses in specific estuaries (such as Nestucca Bay at 65 percent and the Salmon River estuary at 42 percent) and in particular habitat types (including 68 percent of tidal marshes and swamps).3 Sediment and pollution from upstream activities and dredging have diminished eelgrass beds. Upstream water diversions have also changed the amount, timing, and quality of freshwater inflows, which are critical to estuary health. Non-native plant and animal species have invaded many Oregon estuaries. Rapid climate change will bring new threats to Oregon’s estuaries and may intensify many of the existing problems. Warming temperatures, rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns, and ocean acidification will all play major roles in shaping estuarine ecosystems for many decades or even centuries to come. The Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife and its conservation partners are working to develop new approaches to conserving estuaries and their ecological values in the face of rapid climate change. These include: • Protecting land upstream of important estuaries from development to allow these areas of habitat to move in response to climate change; • Improving management of watersheds that feed sediment and fresh water into estuaries to help counteract the effects of climate-related changes; and • Educating the public and decision-makers about the importance of limiting bulkheading and other kinds of shoreline armoring that limit the inland migration of estuaries in response to sea-level rise. Using these and other climate change adaptation strategies, we can help estuary habitats and the fish and wildlife that live there adjust to changing conditions and be more resilient to current and future threats. Overview of climate change impacts arming temperatures: During the last century, Recent models indicate additional increases in average Wthe Pacific Northwest experienced overall annual temperature of 3.2°F by the 2040s and 5.3°F warming of about 1.5° F. This trend is expected to by the 2080s for the Pacific Northwest.4 Coastal sea continue and to accelerate through at least this century, surface temperatures in the region are projected to although temperatures beyond the year 2050 will be increase about 2.2°F by the 2040s, when compared to highly dependent on future greenhouse gas emissions. the period between 1970 and 1999. Cover photos: Nestucca Bay. Photo Roy W. Lowe, USFWS. Western sandpiper. Photo Wikipedia. Poole Slough Yaquina Bay. Photo Bruce Taylor. 1 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Sea level rise: Warming temperatures are driving Absorption of CO2 helps buffer the earth from some of rising sea levels in two ways: indirectly, by melting the effects of increased carbon emissions, but it also glaciers and ice caps that add freshwater to the ocean, makes ocean waters more acidic (that is, the pH is and directly, through the expansion of water as the lowered). Since 1750, the pH of seawater has dropped oceans warm. (Warm water takes up a greater volume significantly (about 0.1 globally).15 That means water than cold water.) After 2000 years of relative stability, is about 1 ¼ times more acidic today. In the future, average global sea levels have risen about 8 inches in surface-water pH could decrease by an additional 0.4 the last 100 years.6 Recent research suggests that a (2 ½ times more acidic) by the end of this century. The global sea-level rise of 3 to 4 feet by the end of the extra acidity interferes with marine creatures’ ability century is likely if greenhouse gas emissions continue on to build shells, putting marine ecosystems at risk and their current path.7 Along the Oregon coast, the amount causing economic losses in communities that depend on of local sea-level rise will vary considerably because of shellfish production and harvesting.16 For perspective, local land subsidence and uplift processes.8 there is no evidence that ocean pH has been lower than 0.5 below present values for at least the past 300 Coastal storms and wave height: Climate change is million years.17 These changes are expected to persist expected to increase the intensity and possibly also the for centuries, even if atmospheric carbon dioxide frequency of coastal storms.9 In recent decades, there concentrations return to pre-industrial levels. has been an increase in storm intensity and wave height across the Pacific Northwest, which may be associated with global climate change, regional climate variability, Implications for Oregon’s estuaries or a combination of the two.10 Each of these trends will tend to increase the effects of sea-level rise on coastal Coastal inundation and erosion: Coastal wetlands have areas as storm events cause shoreline erosion and persisted through past changes in ocean levels because reshape estuaries.11 of the natural build-up of sediment and organic matter, which raises the elevation of the wetland floor over time Changes in precipitation and freshwater runoff: as the sea level rises. However, in some estuary systems Over the next century, annual precipitation in the Pacific future ocean levels may rise too quickly to allow Northwest is expected to stay within the range of wetlands to keep pace with sea-level rise. In that case, natural variability. However, we are likely to see a these habitats will be flooded or lost (that is, converted moderate increase in winter precipitation and a decrease to open water habitat) unless they have room to 18 in summer precipitation.12 Precipitation could also be “migrate” upslope to adjust to rising water levels. less frequent but more intense in the future: There has In many developed areas of the coast, sea walls, been a widespread, long-term trend toward more heavy bulkheading, rip rapping, and other kinds of shoreline precipitation events, and that trend is expected to armoring prevent landward migration of estuary continue.13 systems. Today, as sea-level and erosion trends become visible on the coastline, state agencies are seeing an As temperatures warm, more of our winter precipita- increase in requests for shoreline armoring permits. tion will fall as rain instead of snow, reducing snowpack and changing the timing and amount of flow in rivers and streams that are primarily fed by snowmelt.14 The Columbia River estuary is the Oregon estuary most affected by this shift, as most others are already influenced more by rain than snow events. Many of the tributary watersheds to the Columbia River have already seen a 60 percent or greater decrease in April 1st snow water equivalent over the past 50 years; projected decreases are even greater. Ocean acidification: Human activities increase the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, and oceans absorb a significant fraction of this gas. Chinook salmon. Photo Wikipedia. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 2 Unfortunately, armoring comes with a price for estuaries. including the amount of light, dissolved oxygen, and Coastal armoring and some upstream land uses can carbon available to estuarine species, the occurrence of reduce sediment supply, making it less likely that harmful algae blooms, and rates of nitrogen fixation sediment build-up will keep pace with sea-level rise. and denitrification.21 As a result, estuaries where migration and sedimentation Hydrological cycles on land also greatly affect the are constrained by development or upstream land uses are functioning of estuary systems by determining the the most likely to convert to open water marine quantity and timing of freshwater inflows and the habitat as sea levels rise. sediments, nutrients, and contaminants that come with them.22 For example, changes in snowmelt are expected Some studies have suggested that rates of coastal to result in increased winter flow and decreased summer erosion may be more impacted by coastal protection flow.23 Increasing temperatures, combined with continu- strategies – in other words, how we choose to react to ally increasing human use of water, are very likely to rising sea levels – and by the changes in storm intensity decrease the overall freshwater input to estuaries, affect- and frequency described above than by the direct results ing sediment inputs, water movement, water quality, and of sea-level rise.19 salinity. These changes can in turn cause stress to plant Changes in biological, chemical, and physical processes: and animal populations and may even cause a major 24 The key processes that drive the productivity of estuaries shift
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